SUPPORT Tools for Evidence-informed Health Policymaking (STP) 17: Dealing with Insufficient Research Evidence

Overview

Journal Health Res Policy Syst

Publisher Biomed Central

Specialties Health Services
Public Health

Date 2009 Dec 19

PMID 20018107

Citations 17

Authors

Andrew D Oxman

John N Lavis

Atle Fretheim

Simon Lewin

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

This article is part of a series written for people responsible for making decisions about health policies and programmes and for those who support these decision makers. In this article, we address the issue of decision making in situations in which there is insufficient evidence at hand. Policymakers often have insufficient evidence to know with certainty what the impacts of a health policy or programme option will be, but they must still make decisions. We suggest four questions that can be considered when there may be insufficient evidence to be confident about the impacts of implementing an option. These are: 1. Is there a systematic review of the impacts of the option? 2. Has inconclusive evidence been misinterpreted as evidence of no effect? 3. Is it possible to be confident about a decision despite a lack of evidence? 4. Is the option potentially harmful, ineffective or not worth the cost?

Citing Articles

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Imani-Nasab M, Seyedin H, Yazdizadeh B, Majdzadeh R Int J Health Policy Manag. 2017; 6(8):457-465.

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